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Reviewed by Sam Panico8 / 10

Just ridiculous.

Ghosthouse has nothing to do with House or House 2. Then again, it also has nothing to with Evil Dead or Evil Dead 2, movies that are known as La Casa and La Casa II in Italy. But hey, who is keeping score? As you'll learn before the end of the week, the next two La Casa movies have nothing to do with this one, either!

Director Umberto Lenzi (Eaten Alive!, Nightmare City) directed this Joe D'Amoto production, which was filmed in the same house as Fulci's House by the Cemetery!

The film starts in the past, right after Henrietta has killed her pet cat. Her father locks her down in the basement, along with her creepy clown doll. He tells his wife that their daughter has to be possessed by the devil, but before they can make a move, she kills dad with an axe to the head and explodes a mirror, sending shards into the eye of her mother, Fulci style. Holy shit, this movie hasn't even started yet and it goes for the jugular!

Let's meet our hero. Paul Rodgers is just your typical guy. He does data entry via ham radio, with his call letters proudly on top of his set-up, made with a wooden router, like something your aunt would have in her house that smells like liver. All he wants to do is sit on the bed and eat chili with his girlfriend, Martha, except he keeps hearing cries for help over the radio.

Also - I should mention that all of the dialogue in this film sounds like it's being said by complete maniacs, adding to my enjoyment of the film. It also has moments of insane dialogue padding - by that I mean, Paul discussing Simon Le Bon with a female ham operator or asking who is more popular in Denver, Kim Basinger or Kelly LeBrock.

They track the signal to the house we saw at the beginning (throughout the film, I kept yelling, "It's Dr. Freudenstein's house! Stay out of his house!" but no one listened) and meet another ham radio operator. Obviously, ham radio was the internet of the 80's. As they walk on the porch, Martha says that the house has an evil aura (her thick accent makes translating her nonsensical dialogue a master's class in Italian exploitation dialogue divination) and refuses to go in. Paul just says, "Yeah,f it. F it." and goes in.

They meet the Dalens, Jim, Mark and Tina, along with Susan. These friends have been interested in the house and Jim may have been the ham radio operation that Paul heard scream. Don't get too used to anyone - anyone involved dies horribly, like a flying fan blade to the throat, a hammer to the brain, getting chopped in half, being hung and even the basement floor splitting apart to reveal a milky substance that works like acid. Even a wacky hitchhiker who walks through the house looking for silver to steal gets wacked. Man, even Paul gets killed in the film's shock twist ending as he gets smooshed by a bus.

It's all Henrietta's fault. She's the kid we saw kill her parents earlier and she just keeps it up. Why? Well, her father stole a clown doll from another child's coffin and gave it to her. You know how these things happen.

There's a completely deranged scene where Martha finds the doll, leading to paper rabbits, feathers and other toys attacking, ending with the doll sneaking up behind Martha and trying to choke her. Becca yelled, "No wonder this girl turned bad. Her toys are shitty!"

You even get Donald O'Brien (Dr. Butcher M.D. himself!) as Valkos, a hitchhiker/backwoods weirdo/the old guy that warns kids. Here, he stalks and kills at random, including the aforementioned hammer to the head kill, after which he shuts the coffin lid on a still alive mortician.

You like severed heads? You like ghost dogs? You like dialogue about Jack the Ripper and the Salem Witch Trials that makes no sense? You like policemen in over their heads spewing jargon-filled exposition? How do you feel about explosions and maggots? Or synthesized sounds that repeat over and over until they make you feel trapped like the characters in the film? Then guess what? I've got the film for you.

Reviewed by MetalGeek2 / 10

Routine Haunted House Schlock

A mysterious ham radio signal (!) draws a group of curiosity seekers to an abandoned house which (naturally) was the site of several murders twenty years ago. Soon they discover that the house is inhabited by the angry spirit of a long-dead little girl and her creepy killer clown doll. This Italian horror flick (from Umberto "Nightmare City" Lenzi) certainly doesn't skimp on the gore, which is a good thing because it's the only thing that made it watchable. The characters are all idiots, the acting/dubbing sucks and the story and dialogue are a complete mess. A better title for this one would have been "Outhouse," or "Sh*thouse."

Reviewed by iamwhitewica4 / 10

Walmart actors

This should be in a bargain bin. I have rarely seen such idiotic characters. If they would not have died I would kill them myself for such bad acting, makes you want to punch them and kill them yourself. Especially the 3 girls, actually forget this, all characters are acting like dumb idiots with no brains and no nerves.

Besides the cast that keep screaming at everything, they don't react. None of the actors in this movie seems real. NO ONE would react like these pathetic zombies, and if they do; they deserve to die!

The movie plot is good and with good acting and directing this could be a very strong movie. The directing and acting makes this version so lame that it should be burned.

I love B movies cause there is something in them you don't get in the Hollywood big flicks; soul. This movie however has no soul, no body, not much besides the amazing story idea. I wish someone would pick it up and make a real movie with real actors. (Is is so bad that you need to really want to see the end to endure the acting, again, it is soooooooooooo bad I couldn't believe it.)

A movie to watch, painfully, just to get the story behind it, good story, destructive acting and directing.